The king of wishful thinking

At work the other day a girl brought in a shoebox. I’ve already learned that unusual boxes mean interesting contents; the first time I came across this phenomenon was when the bringers said that “it’d been hit by a car and we couldn’t leave it”. When I cautiously peeped into the box a very tetchy buzzard tried to get out. My, they have sharp pointy bits and very big wings in a small waiting room. However I reckoned a shoebox couldn’t be all that hazardous and slowly lifted the lid, to reveal two very pathetic kittens. The girl (who turned out to be one of The Boy’s friends from junior school) had found them on the farm where she lives and knew they wouldn’t survive if left. They were very young - much younger than Tigger had been when we found her. They were about six inches long, nose to tail-tip, and their eyes – what you could see of them through the gunk – were blue. One was clearly very poorly indeed, lying on the base of the box with its legs splayed out, barely breathing. The other was a bit brighter, lifted its head and peered over the edge of the box. When I put my hand towards it to stroke it with a finger it cowered away. Their coats were a dull black and they were absolutely crawling with fleas. When they were taken through to the consulting room (I got a bit of a ticking-off afterwards because I’d been so busy chatting to the girl about what she was doing now, how she was getting on, wasn’t her brother doing well for himself (a lovely lad who stopped The Boy being bullied at school; he’s now an actor, in TV and movies – last seen as Ivan in Emmerdale) and all that sort of thing I hadn’t logged them onto the computer) I heard myself tell the vet that if they were saveable I’d take them.

What? Where did that come from? I thought I didn’t want kittens because of the dogs. I don't want kittens. If I did want kittens I certainly wouldn’t choose such dull, manky-looking specimens as those. Sorry, but they were. These kits couldn’t be more different from Tigger whilst still being the same species. She was everything they weren’t – healthy, friendly, clean, parasite-free; having seen these two I’m even more convinced that Tigger had only recently been dumped. Isn’t it silly – every time we walk the dogs up to those fields we look in the same place to see if there are any more abandoned kittens. What are the chances of that happening?

The kittens weren’t saveable and were quickly and quietly put to sleep, poor little scraps.

*hardens heart for next time*